A Sermon preached by the Rev. Michael Anderson Bullock
[Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18; Philippians 3:17-4:1; Luke 13:31-35]
“Seeing the forest for the trees”: It’s an old adage about the importance of gaining – if not keeping – perspective. Recalling the truth about keeping perspective is (of course) always important, especially in times of high anxiety. Clearly, you and I are in such highly anxious times with some trees acting as if they are the forest. Regaining perspective, acquiring the sight of the “forest” amongst all the trees, is one of the purposes that you and I gather for worship.
As members of Christ’s Body, we gather in response to Jesus’ promise that whenever two or three of us gather in his Name, the Risen One is present; and in that presence you and I have the opportunity to step back from all the demanding “trees” to see God’s “forest”. Perspective.
One of the resources that we have for perspective is scripture. In the biblical tradition, perspective comes from the various stories that the Bible contains. Yet having said this, one of the dangers of dealing with the biblical stories week-after-week (as we do) is that we can easily lose sight of how the particular stories can obscure the overarching message and theme of the God-life. This is the reason that over the years I have suggested to you that the Bible’s “big”, overarching, thematic, focusing stories are: Creation; Covenant; Exodus; Exile; Return. Like an umbrella, all the biblical stories and content are gathered under and processed by these crucial, “forest” stories.
In this regard, I remember the televised interview with Don Hewitt, who was the originator of the CBS News program, Sixty Minutes. In 1968, Hewitt offered the new concept of a weekly television news magazine. Currently in its 51st broadcast year, Hewitt was interviewed a while back; and in the interview, the very first question the reporters asked him was to identify the reason Sixty Minutes was so successful. Without a second’s pause, Hewitt quickly and directly responded that there were four elements to Sixty Minutes’ success. Raising his right hand and extending one finger for each aspect of his answer, he said: “Tell -- me -- a -- story”.
It just so happens that as we encounter God’s story in scripture today, we meet in our Old Testament reading one of those “big”, focusing, biblical stories – the second of the thematic five: Covenant.
The story of the “Covenant” sequentially follows the story of the Creation. The point being that God’s creative love and power need to be shared with his creation – specifically someone made in God’s own image. So, God focuses on a man and a woman (once again) and calls Abram and Sarai into partnership with him. The covenant was deceptively simple. Abram (and by extension, his wife, Sarai) commit themselves to following “God” as their point of orientation; and in return, God would use the two partners to foster a great nation of people who would inherit the holy charge of inviting the world to share in what life is like on God’s terms.
Such a deal! This holy, covenanted partnership immediately transformed Abram and Sarai’s life: the first manifestation of this change was reflected in their names being changed. From “Abram”, which in Hebrew means “exalted father” to “Abraham”, which means “the father of a multitude”; and from “Sarai” (meaning, “princess”) to “Sarah” as a “royal mother of many”). “What’s in a name?” a love-sick Romeo ruminates.1 Ask Abraham and Sarah.
The “deal” that was struck between God and Abraham stipulated a simple agreement: I will be your God; and you will be the father of my people, and their job is to demonstrate and share what life with me is like. OK; but there is a problem, which stems from the core of this Covenant story. The hope of such a partnership with God and its fulfillment remains painfully delayed for Abraham, to the point of failure. Sarah is barren, one of a series of women in the God-story whose situation seems to negate the possibility of God’s promise. So, in understandable response to the delay, Abraham looks around for some evidence that he and God are still in a fruitful arrangement. Seeing the stubborn reality of barrenness in his life, Abraham essentially demands of God: “Where’s the beef?!”
But God doesn’t argue with Abraham. Rather, the Holy One takes his old-pod-of-a-partner outside, where the jet-black, night sky is strewn by the vastness of the Milky Way. “This”, the Creator of heaven and earth says, “will be the number of your descendants.” And quite remarkably, certainly from our perspective, Abraham is convinced by this experience; and the text says that he “believed” God’s promise. This is to say that Abraham not only trusted what God said (“trust” is what faith is); more significantly Abraham “believed” (that is, Abraham “gave his heart to” God and to the promised project), which is what “belief" means. While “belief” is clearly related to “faith’s” “trust”; even so “belief” goes beyond “trust” to enter the arena of the “heart”, which as we all know is risky territory, to be sure. Broken hearts are no fun! Yet, a life that avoids the heart of all matters is tragically dead from the beginning.
The dramatic issue that this “Covenant” story contains (and one that eats at us, too) is that “faith” and “belief” are corroded by the very real experience of the promise being “delayed”. Abraham complains, You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir!2 This raises the unnerving question of: Can God be trusted? This is the whispered but radical implication of this “Covenant” story. It produces and addresses what we call the “crisis of faith. And one of the things that this scene raises in me is that faith is messy, and it requires work. Faith involves not only a hard-fought, tested conviction; it is also not for the weak of heart. Faith is not a spectator sport. Yet, faith is (in fact) the only game in town because when it comes to real life, if there is no trust; no connection; no relationship, there is no life.
And so, as with Abraham, we encounter the reality and the problem of faith: The problem is the Waiting. “How long, O Lord?” The waiting tends to breed doubt, which is the reason we need to remember that doubt is not the opposite of faith. Fear is. Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great…3
The delayed promise brings doubt to most of us. Yet surprisingly, doubt poses a choice to us concerning our faith and the status of our hearts. We can use doubt either as an excuse that allows us to bail on the relationship; or our doubts can be (to use Frederick Buechner’s spritely notion) “the ants in the pants of faith”4 . Amidst the barrenness in our lives and in our experiences, the soul-chilling, faith-threatening question is: Can the closed womb of the present be broken open to give birth to a new future?5
Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.
In response to this question, I will close with a personal – but not unique – experience of faithful waiting for the real promise of new life. This story is about childbirth.
Three times I have had the heart-shaking experience of helping Bev give birth. In pregnancy, faith that there will be a baby begins to be dampened by the waiting, to the extent that by the eighth and certainly by the ninth month, both husband and wife are more than tired of the waiting. “How many dill pickles does it take to do the waiting?” “Are those clams you crave fresh?” But the promise of new life remains; and, thanks be to God, it prevails.
There is no other word for birthing than “labor”. I have had a few orthopedic surgeries, and that is the worst physical pain I have encountered; but my bone surgery did not entail my entire pelvis being stretched and then collapsed! So, new life takes faith – especially in the midst of doubt and pain. But the truth is (and I have seen it with my own eyes!), that when the baby is born and that infant is placed on the mother’s chest, the pain does not go away; but it is given new meaning, in the context of new experience and perspective. With the baby safely on the mother’s chest, nestling and at home, the pain and doubt of it all is transformed, changed from some of the worst pain this life can offer to the unspeakable reality of new life – the promise fulfilled and in our arms. Daring to go through this is the “reward”.
I close with St. Paul’s reminder to his charges in Philippi about perspective and faith. He says, Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord…6 Amen.
1. William Shakespeare. “Romeo and Juliet”, 2:2
2. Genesis 15:3
3. Genesis 15: 1
4. Frederick Buechner. Wishful Thinking, p. 20
5. Walter Bruggemann. Genesis, 142
6. Philippians 4:1
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